Peacocks Can't Fly Above 9,000 Feet

Curecanti National Recreation Area, Colorado

The altitude here is 9,300 feet. It started to snow just after we arrived. The temperature rises to about 35 during the day and drops to around 15 at night.


The campgrounds are officially closed but you can camp in some of them if you wish. We found one to move to today with a lovely view of a lake and mountains. The picnic tables are buried in snow, but they’ve plowed the road.


The Gunnison river loses more elevation in 48 miles than the Mississippi loses in 1500. It used to slam though the canyon at the rate of 12,000 cubic feet a seconds in Spring with 3 million horsepower. This allowed the river to carve an extremely steep canyon though very hard rock at a depth of nearly 3,000 feet.


The upper portions of the river now have three dams which created high mountain lakes stocked with many species of trout, Dolly Varden and salmon. The lake region is administered by the National Park Service and is called the Curecanti National Recreation Area.


The most dramatic 14-mile stretch of the river is a National Park: The Black Canyon of the Gunnison. We talked to two park rangers yesterday who were shoveling snow off an observation overlook. They told us that normally the trails would have been open two weeks ago, but the snowfall this year was 150% of normal.


The campground cat at the last place was very friendly. It was furry and fat and seemed to live outdoors with the coyotes. Here it is eating a breakfast of salmon salad (salmon, eggs, onions and mayonnaise). It seemed to want to leave with us but Mrs. Phred and I decided against acquiring a companion.


We can go on any of the trails, they say, with snowshoes. Mrs. Phred and I have never tried snowshoes. We both grew up in Florida. I ask if snowshoes can be rented locally and got the name a sporting goods store in Montrose. Maybe? Here are a few pictures of the area.

Ass-Boarding in America

Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado

The wind outside is gusting to about 50 mph. We’re back from Taos and parked next to 30 square miles of 700 foot tall sand dunes. It’s a recipe for a sandstorm. Turns out that sandstorm sunsets are nothing like the lovely pollution inspired sunsets of coastal Florida. They are more of a two-tone blue over brown.

We invented a new sport yesterday while hiking the dunes. We call it ass-boarding. It’s marginally more fun and much less controversial than water-boarding.


It’s tough to climb up a 700 foot sand dune at 8,200 feet. You breathe heavily. Sand gets in your sneakers. You think Lawrence of Arabia. You think camels. You think "Flight of the Phoenix". You start singing...

All day I've faced a barren waste
Without the taste of water, cool water
Old Dan and I with throats burned dry
And souls that cry for water
Cool, clear, water
Keep a-movin, Dan, dontcha listen to him, Dan
He's a devil, not a man
He spreads the burning sand with water…

So today we got up early and went down to Taos in New Mexico on the edge of the Taos Indian Reservation.. The most interesting thing we saw was the Taos Pueblo. The Pueblo has been continuously inhabited for 1,000 to 1,200 years. It’s hard to exactly date the construction. Regardless it’s the oldest continuously inhabited community in North America.


The buildings are divided by the Red Willow Creek, which flows down from the sacred Blue Lake in the mountains to the East. Only members of the community are allowed into the Reservation area that includes the lake. The only modern addition to these buildings is doorways. The original adobe structures were entered through holes in the roof. Ladders were pulled up when invaders appeared.

The Taos Indians closely guard their language and traditions. They revolted against Spanish rule in 1680 and remained free for about 30 years. In 1847 they attempted to over throw the U.S. Government and managed to kill the first governor of New Mexico, Charles Bent. Retribution was swift.


We had lunch in the Doc Martin’s Restaurant near the Taos Plaza. We both ordered coffee and Lamb Wraps. Tomorrow we head for the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.


Here are a few more pictures of Taos.

Good Reasons to Get Out of Dodge

Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado

We’re not in Kansas anymore. We’re at 8200 feet in the middle of a huge high valley surrounded by the snow-capped Rocky Mountains. There are four nearby mountains that exceed 14,000 feet.

We spent yesterday looking at Dodge City in Kansas. The main employer seems to be Cargill Foods. They truck in 10,000 head of cattle a day to be slaughtered and processed. There are massive cattle concentration camps everywhere where cattle are packed in feedlots to fatten up amid gigantic piles of stinking black dung.

Dodge is a poor, sad, shabby place now. The saloons and bawdy houses are gone. The buffalo hunters, steely eyed lawmen, gamblers and cattle drive cowboys are only a memory. The old Front Street stores and saloons burned down long ago.

We visited the Boot Hill Museum. The old gravesites have been preserved. It’s the kind of place you go to see to be sure you haven’t missed anything. The answer is no. That’s about it for Dodge.

This morning the stars are out, the sky is clear and the moon is down. I glance up and see the Dipper, the Navigator’s Triangle, the Milky Way burning a swath across the sky and Sagittarius in the South.
The temperature warmed up into the seventies yesterday and dropped to 22 F. during the night. The dunes here are the tallest in North America. They are most beautiful at sunrise and sunset when the colors and shadows form strange shapes.

We’ll do some hiking in the Park today and then take the Toyota on a daytrip to Taos, New Mexico Tuesday. Taos is only 100 miles south. We might not have another chance to see it.

Mrs. Phred said she loved me last night after I got the satellite tuned in so she could watch tennis. She reminded me that I had threatened to make her set up the satellite because I thought it was a bad idea. “Right! Like that’s going to work!” I told her. We laughed.

With longitude, latitude, azimuth and altitude precisely established in three widely separated locations, I can easily find the satellite now from anywhere.

Here are a few more pictures of the dunes and surrounding area.

Wichita Museum of Art

Wichita, Kansas

There are 16 museums in Wichita listed in my Streets and Trips software. We have a day so I scribble the names and addresses of eight and we head downtown.


First stop: The Museum of art...a knock-out. I enjoyed it more than the day we spent in the Louvre.


I took about 75 pictures. They made me sign an agreement not to use flash, sell the pictures or take pictures of art on loan to the museum. Too bad. They had a great collection of Inuit scupture on loan.

It's a wonderful place in a lovely setting on the river.

One special feature is a very whimsical blown glass chandlier.

These mid-west cities are full of surprises.... on to the Coleman Camping Gear Museum and Factory Outlet..Then the World Treasures Museum. It's full of dinosaurs, pieces of the Berlin Wall, minerals, laughing Buddas, war stories and other treasures...here are some pictures of Wichita.

Crop Circles

Wichita, Kansas

Mrs. Phred and I dress all in black and check our equipment list:
- 200 feet of rope
- Stakes
- 3 foot planks with attached ropes
- Laser pointer
- Protractors
- Night vision goggles
- Camera

We decide on dinner at the Texas Roadhouse before heading out to the wheat field. It’s really crowded for a Thursday, so we drive west of town and find an empty restaurant called the Siesta Lounge for dinner.

After dark we park the Toyota and unload our gear. It’s going to be hard minimizing footprints in the muddy field. I follow her and step where she steps.

Suddenly, we look up and see a huge glowing saucer shape materialize in the clouds. I snap this one picture.

We feel a strange floating sensation and lose consciousness. When I wake up I find myself naked and strapped facedown on what appears to be an operating table. A group of small gray creatures with large black eyes approach. One appears to be holding a probe of some sort.

Somehow we can understand their thoughts. They are tired of being blamed for cattle mutilations and crop circles. We’ve been swept up in an alien crop circle interdiction program. They implant devices will make us very sick if we even think about making crop circles again

We lose consciousness once more and awake next to the Toyota. We dress and go back to the RV.. “Everybody Loves Raymond” reruns are on the TV.